Levi's 501's

My "gender fluid" teens.

David Jones, Cinematography, SNL | 2017

I must confess, I was a Levi Girl. A boy’s Levi 501 girl. In fact, following

Jennifer Sey

from “Sey Everything,” here on Substack, I’ve most definitely been compromised.

Levi Strauss & Co.’s roots went from dressing gold miners, cowboys and the blue collar working class to supporting human rights in their factories, paying a fair wage, (“pay for performance,” from the sewing machine operator on up), never unionizing, to a culture of conformity and canceling.

I’m positive that many of us have adored the brand for years. What we haven’t adored is the disease that has infused itself into just about everything our hands touch.

WOKE.

The early and insightful comedy of the above SNL skit saw it coming. Everyone laughed. This was during prehistoric times when one could openly laugh out loud. Parody and comedy are all we have left. It’s not just funny, but humbling at times. We can be pretty stupid.

Right after this even SNL’s ship sunk with the media arm of the national and international health forces coming to it’s rescue.

Do as we say or…. (so healthy!)

“We know that some women buy some men’s products and some men buy women’s products. We know that that goes on, we’ve got the research and the data to show it,” Chip Bergh, CEO, Levi Strauss, said during an Axios BFD event in San Francisco on Wednesday (today).

This sounds normal for Levi’s demographic, which is huge and diverse. Levis not only has the data, they began a new “gender fluid” line in 2017, hence SNL. So what’s going on now? Chip wants more.

Levi has a near 70 pants choices.

From 1972 to 1975 I attended a three year junior high school in the San Fernando Valley (California). During this time, my best friend Jane and I hung out every single day after school. She lived up the street from me. We discovered almost immediately we were quirky.

Sharing an extremely dry sense of humor, a love of candy vs. homework and an affinity to boy’s Levi’s, we spent several of our afternoons walking to Soskin’s Drug Store, in baggy brand new 501’s, (that we convinced our parents to buy) to buy Giant Tarts and various other candies. On the way home we’d laugh about the silliest things and plan how were were going to “wear out our Levi’s.” We wanted them to look aged. Back then Levi’s 501’s came in stiff dark navy, unwashed jeans material, and needed shrinking and a lot of wear to look cool.

I’ll never forget our first pair. Like the silly young nerds we were, we looked all around Jane’s house for ways to make our pants look old and worn. We had moved away from our little white rock roofed home and it just so happened she lived in a home with a white rock roof. I suggested we climb up on the roof with our candy and rub our pants on the rocks. So we did! Got some tart chalk on them too!

The end result was some white chalk-like stains on our pants, especially our behinds, but our moms washed them off.

Our next idea was riding skateboards up and down our block, bending, falling, in order to get the stiffness out of them. Neither of us rode skateboards and I can’t remember how we got the wooden boards, yet there we were giving it our best shot. Unfortunately, we lived on a block where the aftermath of the ‘71 earthquake made for and un-repaired, desperately uneven sidewalk. I took flight one time, after hitting a bump and landed with the 501 copper interior buttons of the fly gouged into my belly. Stunned, ready to cry out in pain, I looked up from my spread eagle position to see Jane rolling in tears on the grassy parkway. I remember thinking I had a cool scar, for awhile. Inadvertently successful, my Levi’s looked terrible.

Jane and I on my front lawn, 14 yrs old, with my dog Charlie, as a puppy, and our Levis…shrunk and worn down. Mine more bleached out.

This is The Family We Keep and I REALLY wanted to keep my love of Levis, but I had to let them go. No more shopping Levis in the last few years. First, they ousted Jennifer Sey for talking about the dangers of school closures during the pandemic. She was right. Now more wokeness. It’s all getting as silly as that skit.

I won’t, however, let go of the funny stories and the memories of feeling cool in my boy’s 501’s. Jane and I had the boxy boy bodies that continued into high school and we loved the fit. By 1976, I wanted to be a cheerleader as I had been dancing in toe-shoes for years and it looked fun to jump around. I wanted to play soccer too, but I couldn’t do both. I was British, what did I know? I also discovered Dittos. I wore bright orange hip-huggers, from a discount outlet, that no one else had, and a thick leather belt, to accompany, purchased with my babysitting cash at a pawn shop next to Pic ‘n Save. I’d go with mom to run next door, chat with the owner and look at his new stuff.

I lived in an eclectic “British house” among the Americans. I became a teen actress due to an unexpected turn of events in a dance class. Even through that, I remained true to myself, but then I got lucky enough to have good parents and be on a show about down-to-earth, rural, depression-era American life in the 1930’s-40’s.

Corporate business isn’t catering to people in this country, they are catering to government agendas and fear, using people like ping-pongs, afraid they will fold. Agendas that ruin people and families. People who actually want to live their lives and love their uniquely wired family and friends, who represent so much more than what their sex is. People who get up and go to work everyday. Beautiful diverse people, with real life struggles, like how to pay bills, rent, feed their kids, take care of their health or help with a family member’s health, buy a bus ride or put new tires on their car.

Fear controls us all, unless we’re willing to risk speaking truth, and come out the other side… with a good night’s rest and some laughter.

Looks like the stock market is going to tell the story of Corporate America.

“Guys 501’s” were this girl’s fashion choice 50 years ago. Levi Strauss was a solid company that sold lots of pants. They didn’t need a government to force a clothing ideal or a media to back it.

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Stay “woke to the Light of the Gospel” and not the darkness of man.

Jane and I, at 16, wearing our Chicago t-shirts, bug glasses, and boys army pants from the surplus store in L.A.… Heading to a week long youth backpacking trip on the Havasupai Reservation in Arizona. Another story :)